A woman gets unwanted attention in Watcher, the feature debut of writer/director Chloe Okuno.
Julia was expecting her life to settle down when she moved in with her fiancé. Sure, she was in a new country where she didn’t know the language, but she was with the person she wanted to be with be with for the rest of her life. Getting acclimated, though, was interrupted when she noticed a neighbor taking an alarming interest in her. He kept his distance but always seemed to be watching, and since no one else was taking her concerns seriously the pressure of this grew insider her without a release valve.
It’s a familiar setup for Okuno to wrangle into a taught thriller. The biggest obstacle will be making sure it doesn’t feel like its many predecessors, but Okuno, despite never having made a feature, has made several shorts in order to develop her own style.
The big eye-catcher for this project will be lead Maika Monroe, who has been a genre favorite since her role in The Guest. She followed that up with impressive turns in It Follows and Greta, so she knows how to navigate a paranoid, threatened character like Julia. Co-starring with her is Karl Glusman and Burn Gorman.
Watcher is directed by Chloe Okuno and stars Maika Monroe, Karl Glusman, and Burn Gorman. It will be released in the US on June 3rd. Further release dates are not currently known.
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